In recent years, technical communicators have examined ethics, or the moral implications of their work, in increasing detail. Since the 1970s, when ethics first became a major topic of consideration in technical communication journals, more articles have appeared on the subject each year. With writers in the discipline expressing this pessimistic point of view, it is little wonder that practicing technical communicators tend not look to the discipline for ethical guidance.
#34815
Writing for the Robot: How Employer Search Tools Have Influenced Résumé Rhetoric and Ethics 
To date, business communication scholars and textbook writers have encouraged résumé rhetoric that accommodates technology, for example, recommending keyword-enhancing techniques to attract the attention of searchbots: customized search engines that allow companies to automatically scan résumés for relevant keywords. However, few scholars have discussed the ethical implications of adjusting résumé keywords for the sole purpose of increasing searchbot hits. As the résumé genre has evolved over the past century, strategies of résumé “padding” have likewise evolved, at each stage violating one of four maxims of the Cooperative Principle. Direct factual misrepresentation violates the maxim of quality and is of course discouraged, but résumé writers have turned in succession to violations of manner (formatting tricks) and then more recently to violations of quantity and/or relevance with deceptive keywording techniques. The authors conclude by suggesting several techniques to business communication instructors that may encourage students to create more ethically sound résumés.
Amare, Nicole and Alan Manning. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Careers>Resumes>Search Engine Optimization>Ethics
#34843
Ethical or Unethical Persuasion? The Rhetoric of Offers to Participate in Clinical Trials
Based on a sample of 22 oncology encounters, this article presents a discourse analysis of positive, neutral, or negative valence in the presentation of three elements of informed consent—purpose, benefits, and risks—in offers to participate in clinical trials. It is found that physicians regularly present these key elements of consent with a positive valence, perhaps blurring the distinction between clinical care and clinical research in trial offers. The authors argue that the rhetoric of trial offers constructs and reflects the complex relationships of two competing ethical frameworks—contemporary bioethics and professional medical ethics—both aimed at governing the discourse of trial offers. The authors consider the status of ethical or unethical persuasion within each framework, proposing what is called the best-option principle as the ethical principle governing trial offers within professional medical ethics.
Barton, Ellen and Susan Eggly. Written Communication (2009). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Ethics
#34853
Embracing Left and Right: Image Repair and Crisis Communication in a Polarized Ideological Milieu
The author explores how a tobacco firm in crisis engaged in crisis communication and image repair work in a highly polarized ideological milieu. Through an analysis of the tobacco firm's public statements produced in the aftermath of a 1997 lawsuit, the author demonstrates how the firm dealt with its milieu by exploiting and embracing both of the ambient ideological poles. By embracing these poles, the firm turned critique and opposition into discursive resources for its crisis communication. The author argues that political-ideological framing of organizational communication and discursive appropriation of critique and opposition serve as critical foci for organizational communication scholarship.
Svensson, Peter. Management Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Crisis Communication>Ethics
#34996
Anti-Employer Blogging: An Overview of Legal and Ethical Issues
Anti-employer blogs, those which criticize companies or their employees, are posing significant legal and ethical challenges for corporations. The important legal issue is the conflict between the employee's legal duty of loyalty to the employer and the employee's right to free speech. Although U.S. and state law describes what an employee may or may not say in a blog, corporations should encourage employees to contribute to the process of creating clear, reasonable policies that will help prevent expensive court cases. The important ethical issue concerning anti-employer blogs is whether an employee incurs an ethical duty of loyalty. In this article, I conclude that there is no such ethical duty. The legal duty of loyalty, explained in a company-written policy statement that employees must endorse as a condition of employment, offers the best means of protecting the legal and ethical rights of both employers and employees.
Markel, Mike. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Blogging>Ethics
#35000
Examining Editor-Author Ethics: Real-World Scenarios from Interviews with Three Journal Editors
Those who submit manuscripts to academic journals may benefit from a better understanding of how editors weigh ethics in their interactions with authors. In an attempt to ascertain and to understand editors' ethics, we interviewed 3 current academic journal editors of technical and/or business communication journals. We asked them about the ethical dilemmas they encountered while working with authors, whether the editors formally or informally followed a "code of ethics," and if they felt obligated to maintain any ethical codes in particular. In this article, we discuss the ethical dimensions of editorial practices using specific ethical scenarios provided by these three editors. We then analyze these scenarios using traditional ethical models in our field but also in terms of a less-known but powerful model of ethical analysis originally proposed by the philosopher C. S. Peirce. We argue that Peirce's "community of inquiry" ethics model best describes these journal editors' ethics when working with authors.
Amare, Nicole and Alan Manning. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2009). Articles>Publishing>Editing>Ethics
#35002
Since 1992, Steven Katz's "The Ethic of Expediency" on the rhetoric of technical communication during the Holocaust has become a reference point for discussions of ethics. But how does his thesis compare to current understandings of the Holocaust? As this article describes, Katz was in step with the trend two decades ago to universalize the lessons of the genocide but his thesis presents key problems for Holocaust scholars today. Against his assertion that pure technological expediency was the ethos of Nazi Germany, current scholarship emphasizes the role of ideology. Does that invalidate his thesis? Katz's analysis of rhetoric and his universalizing application to the Holocaust are two claims that may be considered separately. Yet even if one does not agree that "expediency" is inherent in Western rhetoric, Katz has raised awareness that phronesis is socially constructed so that rhetoric can be unethically employed. Thus, rather than remain an uncritically accepted heuristic for technical communicators, "The Ethic of Expediency" can be a starting point for ongoing exploration into the ethical and rhetorical dimensions of the genre.
Ward, Mark. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2009). Articles>Education>History>Ethics
#35009
Editorial Ethics: The Role of the Editor Before Peer Review
Editors who work with authors before a manuscript is sent for review face certain challenges. Since we’re often the first to see a manuscript, we sometimes encounter problems we must help solve before they come back to bite the author. These problems fall into a variety of categories, of which I see three repeatedly in my work. In this article, I’ll discuss the nature of these problems, provide examples from my own career as a science editor, and suggest how similar problems might arise in other types of editing.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Corrigo (2008). Articles>Editing>Scientific Communication>Ethics
#35247
This article gives a detailed encyclopedic overview of the many areas and concepts that fall within the domain of information ethics. Thus, it offers brief synoptic remarks on, for example, privacy and peer review, rather than in-depth discussions of these topics, many of which have generated thousands of studies, articles, and monographic treatments.
Hauptman, Robert. Business Information Review (2008). Articles>Information Design>Privacy>Ethics
#35418
Intellectual Property Responsibilities of Content Developers
As a technical writer, I develop content for the applications I'm supporting. Often that includes designing content, images, and multi-media to provide the best user experience possible. As content developers, however, we have a responsibility (both legal and moral) to ensure that the content we are using is being used properly and legally.
Pherson, Paul. Technically Speaking (2009). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Ethics
#35737
Tweet Ethics: Trust and Transparency in a Web 2.0 World
Don’t we all want to get the conversation going in a positive direction when it comes to representing the companies and clients we work for? And while there have, of course, always been incidents of deception in journalism and PR, somehow the advent of the Internet and social media has made this a much bigger issue. As PR representatives and journalists for individuals and companies learn more about the benefits of Twitter and other forms of social media, questions are arising about how—and how not—to present information.
Pophal, Linda. Communication World Bulletin (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Ethics>Social Networking
#35792
The Tact of Social Media Monitoring 
Focuses on opportunities for network conversation analysis to elicit valuable information about the social context of brand mentions. The challenge for marketers lies in how to use this information in a way that preserves trust with customers.
SxDSalon (2009). Articles>Social Networking>Privacy>Ethics
